Photographer
Much of my photography centres around landscapes, natural and manmade and how that shapes us and our culture and/or how we and our cultures shapes our constructed and social landscapes. I like how the local makes us all unique to our own parts of the world. I haven’t concentrated so much on people who shape our culture especially artists, be they writers, musicians, painters etc. …
As an exercise I sometimes try and photograph with an eye to preserving a view that will not exist in the future. The above is one such view. Shot from Cambie Street and looking across Georgia Street to the north. The parking lot seen at the lower right of the image is the future site of the Vancouver Art Gallery. That new building will most …
A while back I posted on a 1970’s publication featuring the work of a group of Vancouver photographers called the BC Almanac. That post is here. The publication was unique as it consisted of a series of mini-books/magazines, each one dedicated to one photographer’s work with the whole collection housed in a folder/cover. The one copy I was able to source and look over was …
An oversize, somewhat decrepit, pink pig piggy bank sits on the grounds of the Saanich fairgrounds. An image any visitor to the fairgrounds will remember. The grounds are host to the annual Saanich Fall Fair.
Currently the home of the the Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre, the Roxy was formerly the Roxy Cinegogue movie theatre. It looks more like an industrial or farm building than an arts centre.
Jason Flower is a music archivist who issues collections of forgotten, lost and hard to find music as well as being a collector and seller of new and old music LPs, 45s, tapes and CD’s. His Victoria store and archival reissue record label bear the same name, Supreme Echo. He’s passionate about his music and that has led to collections of early punk music from …
A BC Transit bus lies at the bottom of a heap of scrap metal waiting to be torn apart and added to the pile in Victoria, British Columbia. The business sits on Victoria’s waterfront just on the edge of the city core. The city has voiced support for keeping industry on the waterfront but one wonders how long a recycling plant will stay (be allowed …
I spent over a decade photographing Canadian writers, a project that resulted in a few exhibitions and two books published by the Banff Centre Press (the second one here). That project petered out after the second book, pushed to the side by the usual reasons, making a living etc. Two years ago I thought I might start creating portraits of writers again but while I did …
I like seeing texts in photographs, signs, billboards, posters, they all add information about a scene or time. Street signs can locate a photograph. Grocery store signs and cafe menus can show us familiar or unusual food and/or how much prices have changed since the image was created. This photograph of entertainment posters in the window of a guitar shop on Blanshard Street in Victoria …
Artist Rachel Berman died in Victoria on May 28. I can’t claim to have known her very well but I had really liked her work and two years ago she agreed to let me photograph her. After that, we’d often run into each other on the street and have a chat. She would encourage me to photograph other artists, making suggestions about possibilities, and chiding …
Wing Sang Building, Vancouver BC 2012 Don Denton photograph The Wing Sang building is the oldest in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The Pender Street heritage building was restored and now houses the Rennie Collection, the private art collection of Vancouver real estate mogul Bob Rennie.
I finally found a copy of the 1970 publication BC Almanac, a library copy. Quite unique for the time, it consists of 15 booklets printed on newsprint and inserted into a cardboard folder. On the negative side, this copy only has nine of the booklets. On the positive side the booklets by Roy Kiyooka and N. E. Thing Co. (Iain and Ingrid Baxter) are in …
From a series of inter-linked photo based projects examining the natural, social and manmade landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. This image from Salt Water & Rain which looks at island and coastal British Columbia.
Took in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s July FUSE event on July 19, this one produced in conjunction with the Arrival Agency. Lots going all evening on the various floors.
Every year I like to start at least one new project. I like to have a number of projects going at the once as I find that due to my full time shooting job my time for personal shooting is limited in both hours and time of day. Having a number of projects means I can usually shoot something in the windows that I have. …
In these days of unemployment and cuts to the arts its always a thrill to come across someone who has a different idea of how to improve things. Eighteen months ago Martin Bright, a resident of London, got such an idea. He called it the New Deal Of The Mind. He wrote about it in The New Statesman, where it received a lot of attention …
The World’s Smallest Photography Supply Store
The old and the new. I really need to get back to Vancouver and just spend a few days wandering around capturing images not just snapping pix on a quick stroll back to other work, although that was fun too.
I came across a few prints and contact sheets I has tucked away in an envelope from the very early days of the Vancouver punk rock scene. Please send a note to correct me if I’m off on names etc. These were taken quite a while ago (1977ish? ) and I didn’t keep the notes I should have. The Furies at the Japanese hall. I …